It’s a new quarter, a new season. Today, and any day, really, is a great day to check in with your progress towards your goals.
And I want to have a new and different conversation about goals today because I have a cool new concept to share!
I had to chuckle – on this morning’s accountability call, I mentioned to my partner that I was writing an article about PACT goals for today’s podcast. And… I admitted that I started it two weeks ago, and I didn’t get it done in time to record last week. Because I had a million other things to do last Monday (like, for REAL!).
Irony? That I didn’t meet a goal to write about goals because I couldn’t / didn’t dedicate the time to get it done? Yes, I think so.
As I set my goals for Q2 in April, I glanced at my goals for Q1 of 2024, and some were “once-and-done’s”.
- Complete the surgical procedure on my nose – done. (Focus Area Health and Wellness)
- Lent and Easter, liturgically with my parish and my choir – done! (Focus Area Service)
- Attend a specific concert on March 29 – done (and it was awesome). (Focus Area Personal / Supporting Independent Art)
However, some of the goals require more of a process, and I have goals from Q1 that migrated to Q2:
- Make progress towards coaching certification by recording coaching clients for an upcoming deadline.
- Make progress on a major project I am working on for NAPO, the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals.
- Attend 12 live music / independent artist concerts in 2024 (one a month).
And I would guess, you have a similar blend of once-and-done goals and also progress goals. In past articles and podcase episodes, we have talked about SMART goals, and I LOVE a good SMART Goal! A SMART goal is:
- Specific,
- Measurable,
- Attainable,
- Relevant and
- Time Specific
For example, here’s a SMART goal:
“I will publish new blog articles and podcast content every week this quarter until I reach 500 posts by June 1, in celebration of my company’s 21st anniversary in June.” This is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and has a time frame attached.
Now, how will I accomplish this goal? This is NOT a once-and-done goal or event since it will take consistent effort for the next 7 weeks to accomplish.
Last Spring, I wrote an article and recorded a podcast Episode about Metrics.
Metrics are quantifiable items we can measure, to determine progress. Achieving our goal is amazing! Success is grand, for sure. But it is also an event. It is a snapshot moment – goal achieved! Done! But more often, the work continues.
To make the goals and the work happen, from day to day, we need to bring the waypoints closer in. We need manageable portions to bite off on a daily or weekly basis in addition to that one big goal we will accomplish at the end of a predetermined amount of time.
Enter – PACT goals. PACT goals are the tool within a tool, the intentional and incremental goals within a big, lofty SMART goal. Per Julie Simpson on Hire.com, “What are PACT Goals? The Lesser-Known Technique to Set Smarter Goals”, PACT “is a goal-setting technique that focuses on output rather than the outcome”.
PACT stands for
- Purpose,
- Actions,
- Continuous and
- Trackable.
It seems then, that often, the journey is the point.
Sometimes we need to set PACT goals to give us the support to meet our SMART goals. And sometimes we need to use PACT goals to create better habits for forever.
Let’s break this down! Purpose. Actions. Continuous and Trackable. I like the idea of continuous movement towards our goals. Let’s use my Publication Goal above as an example.
The question of “Purpose” is important for setting goals. We want to know that we are achieving what we want to achieve. That just makes sense. We want to know our purpose and we want to be purposeful (think “intentional”). And once we figure out what we are awesome at and what we are meant to do in life, as in what we want to do intentionally with our time in small and large pieces, then that’s our purpose.
When we set purposeful goals, we want to know that what we’re seeking to achieve aligns with who we are, what we want in life, etc.. And publishing high quality and supportive content for my community definitely aligns with my professional goals.
At a class last week, I heard the nicest feedback! A participant said ” You bring such positive energy!”. Yep, that’s the plan! And when it comes to our goals, we want to be purposeful, we want to be intentional, and to know that the goal that we are setting fits into the context of who we are and what we want in life.
And since success towards my publishing goal is not something I can just knock out the day before my June 1 deadline, I need to be intentional on how I spend my time in the next 7 weeks. I need to PURPOSEFUL in my actions.
And, on to Action! Action, because we’re talking about goal setting here, right? We’re talking about making progress. We’re talking about moving forward. All of those words are active words.
Progress requires action almost all the time. What are the actions that we need to take to move us towards our PACT goals? Working towards the publication goal, my actions have included in the last week spending 30 minutes each day on the project:
- Review my voice memos on my phone, rename them and send them as an attachment to my email.
- Upload to the transcription service that I use and have all the unpublished memos transcribed.
- Match up all the voice memos / transcriptions with my list of published articles and podcast topics, and delete any duplicates.
- Add the unpublished topics to my editorial content calendar.
And now that I know what I want to write about and publish, I will carve out an hour on the calendar 3 – 4 days a week for writing / editing.
And, since PACT goals need to be trackable, every one of those steps I listed above is trackable with metrics. I went from 30 voice memos down to 10. I went from 45 transcriptions down to 11. I increased, after deleting many duplicate topics, from 20 to 35 topics on my editorial calendar. And now I can track “writing minutes” weekly as progress towards the goal. Action.
Next up, and forever – Continuous.
Purpose and Actions are easy to see, but I think what sets PACT goals apart are the Continuous and Trackable aspects.
Let’s talk about continuous and trackable. Using as an example, my goal of publication by June 1. I’ve set my intentions, I have determined my actions. Now I need to do them! What would continuous progress look like towards my goal look like? I can determine that, and then make the progress towards that goal. And beyond, of course, because I have a waypoint, a milestone in mind, but I certainly won’t stop writing after the June 1 deadline.
I need to take action every day or multiple times a week. Continuous might not mean every minute of every day, but it certainly will mean regular consistent, continuous progress towards the goal.
Perhaps a wellness goal is a good example, too – 30 minutes of cardio 5 times a week is purposeful, continuous and trackable action, and a habit that will help you for life. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the journey is the point.
Finally, let’s talk “Trackable”.
How do we make progress happen? How do we measure progress and not just “I’m feeling better about the process” or “I am less stressed with writing”, or “I am having more fun”.
“Progress” is sometimes difficult to quantify. But when we determine our purpose and actions, and the interval which makes them continuous, we can track progress. In my example, I can track articles published, words written, minutes or hours worth of writing or editing, engagement with my readers by number of likes or shares, etc. These are trackable items. Which also means, I can track improvements from week to week by paying attention to trends in the tracking.
How far have you come? What have you accomplished so far? Reviewing your tracking, what can you do to improve the process?
In addition to catching up on my writing process, which is what my actions in the past week were about, I can also track my progress moving forward. I have re-set my content process and will continue with these new strategies for a few weeks. And then I can look and see if my output has improved over that time. If it has – yeah! If it has not, I probably need to review and adjust my strategies.
To Review:
Setting PACT goals is a strategy that focuses on the process and not just the end product. We can use PACT goals with SMART goals, as the support to accomplish our SMART goals. OR we can use PACT goals as a method of continuous improvement. PACT stands for Purpose, Action, Continuous and Trackable, and can be used to help us focus on the process of progress and not just the event of achieving a goal.
I hope you found this helpful. If you would like to comment, please share with me on social media or drop me an email at colleen@peaceofmindpo.com, or drop me a DM on one of my social media platforms. I can’t wait to hear about how PACT goals helped you move forward.